Income tax blues, credit card overload, too many kids in college. All kinds of budget-busting expenses may leave too little cash for fun. But there’s no need to let the pinch get you down. DuPage County has a wealth of entertaining things to do for free.
Discovering them is a big part of the pleasure-from art galleries, folk song fests, brown bag lectures and foreign film showings to comedy routines, noontime jazz concerts and guided forest walks. They’re all available for free, although admittedly no-cost fare is tougher to find than it once was.
Jack Weiseman, director of the Arts Center at the College of DuPage, came up with the reason: “We used to have more free events, but we found in order to build our audiences it helps to charge a little bit. Our attendance doubled when we started charging for our college and community band concerts.”
Does ticket price always reflect value? Not if you’re willing to shop around. That’s what this reporter and a companion found during a two-week, fun-for-free marathon combing the county from end to end, enjoying a full plate of no-budget entertainment options.
Day 1 found us tapping our toes at what turned out to be a songwriters’ jam session in St. Charles. It was the Fox Valley Folklore Society’s Open Mike night (8 p.m., the first Wednesday of every month, Mack’s Silver Pheasant Restaurant on Illinois Highway 25, 4 1/2 miles north of Illinois Highway 64).
Everyone’s welcome to sing, but most of the country and folk performers were seasoned professionals who frequent the coffeehouse circuit. They’ve been getting together on Wednesday nights for years to showcase their newest lyrics and spend a feel-good evening of music and merriment. Refreshments are available, but there’s absolutely no pressure to buy, so we left the engaging Lake Wobegone-like scene after three hours (the music was still going strong) without spending a dime. Next time we’ll bring the guitar.
The discordant beauty of a Chinese zheng, a harp-like instrument that dates to 400 B.C., was the highlight of the following evening at North Central College in Naperville where a colorful, free evening of sword dancing, Chinese folk songs and tai chi (a system of self-defense and meditation) ushered in the Year of the Pig.
Indeed, DuPage colleges proved to be a ready source for free entertainment, despite Weiseman’s admonition. At COD in Glen Ellyn, we discovered the Festival of International Films, running through April 9, a collection of 13 classic celluloid gems that represent moviemaking at its finest. A discussion with a COD faculty member followed the showing. (One word of caution: Because of their sexual content, several of the films are recommended for adults only.)
Music making was a favorite attraction on most of the campuses, but we discovered it pays to call the week before an event because schedules do change. Upcoming no-cost events at Elmhurst College include the 70-member Elmhurst College Community Band concert April 1 at 8 p.m. in Hammerschmidt Chapel.
Illinois Benedictine College in Lisle has a full schedule of free musical events this spring, including its Jazz at Noon series, scheduled for every Thursday through April 13 in the Krasa Center Fireside Lounge, and the seven-hour outdoor Annual Jazz Festival marathon, starting at 11 a.m. April 30.
Savoring the DuPage art scene proved to be a challenge since the best galleries are scattered throughout the county. But by pairing gallery stops with other events, we enjoyed a delightful array of fine art for free, albeit not as effortlessly as a wine-and-cheese tour of Chicago’s River North gallery area.
At the Hinsdale Center for the Arts in Katherine Legge Memorial Park, the lobby has been turned into a tiny art gallery well known for first-rate fare. Nineteen artists from cities including New York and Portland, Ore., will exhibit their “Self Portraits” March 31-May 6.
COD’s Gahlberg Gallery, on the ground floor of the Arts Center, is a four-star stop that will be showing sculptor Diane Simpson’s works through April 22.
One of the best-kept art secrets in the county is Elmhurst College’s permanent collection of Chicago-area imagist, formalist and expressionist works. Said to be among the best public collections of this period in the metropolitan area, it fills the main floor of the A.C. Buehler Library on campus. Students are obviously accustomed to visitors peering over the study nooks to view the fine works.
Wheaton College, too, houses a fine art gallery in its Billy Graham Center Museum with the annual Sacred Arts juried show of contemporary Christian art on exhibit through May.
The Wheaton campus offers other no-cost attractions, including the popular Perry Mastodon on view from inside or outside Armerding Hall and the remarkable Marion E. Wade Center collection of the memorabilia of noted British authors, among them C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers and J.R.R. Tolkien.
Stargazers are invited to enjoy a free tour of the heavens from the Wheaton College Observatory atop Armerding Hall. It’s open to the public Friday nights until the end of April for the first two hours after sunset.
Decidedly down-to-earth attractions proved to be the fare at irregularly scheduled noontime events at local colleges. Geoff Brown, a stand-up comic booked as part of COD’s “Thursdays Alive” series (11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Fish Bowl at the Student Resource Center) definitely hit the mark with his irreverent routine.
At North Central College, storyteller/singer Mama Edie, costumed in colorful West African garb, enchanted an audience of mostly mothers and kids with her music and African tales. This event was part of the college’s open-to-the-public midday lecture series.
We found colleges weren’t the only fertile ground for entertainment on the cheap. Public libraries are another trove of free treasures. A Sunday afternoon performance at the Downers Grove Public Library featured “Lance Brown’s (Somewhat Fractured) History of the World Show,” a hilarious musical romp through the millennia from the Big Bang to the beer bellies of the ’90s, set to unquestionably original tunes.
Model railroading buffs should head for the DuPage Historical Museum in Wheaton, where amateur model engineers have been building a miniature DuPage County in the basement of the museum for more than 20 years. They’ve laid more than 2,000 feet of HO-gauge track and replicated the local villages.
When the trains are running (the third and fifth Saturdays of the month, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.), the place is jammed with noses pressed against the glass to get close to the action.
A return visit during a quieter time is suggested for those who want to enjoy the amazing workmanship of the miniature towns and tracks and to discover such bits of whimsy as Sara Triceratops, the imaginary girlfriend the model railroading crew buried next to Perry Mastodon in its miniature Wheaton.
The amateur train engineer we were lucky enough to waylay as he emerged from behind the scenes took great pleasure in pointing out the highlights of the model exhibit and describing how his fellow trainmen follow a 51-page operating manual to the letter.
International folk dancing is the fare every Thursday night at the Fermilab Village Barn in Batavia. (Scottish country dancing is the first, third and fifth Tuesday at the same site.) Expect a rollicking good time.
Lessons for beginners started at 7:30 p.m. and within minutes we were whirling around the room almost in step with an Israeli circle dance followed by a Serbian belt-hold dance. By the end of the evening the veterans had danced their way through Macedonia, Quebec, Bulgaria, Wales, Romania, Greece, Hungary and a number of folk-dancing capitals in between, while we were catching our breath.
Although many of the Fermilab regulars are experienced folk dancers, newcomers are made to feel immediately welcome, either in the dance circle or enjoying the lively action from the sidelines.
For a harbinger of spring, we joined the maple syrup gatherers at Fullersburg Woods in Oak Brook. (Noon to 3 p.m. today and March 26.) The self-guided Maple Syrup Trail takes visitors on a lazy loop through the woods, with displays describing how syrup has been gathered through the centuries.
The trail ends in the Sugar House where naturalists boil the sap in huge iron kettles to its syrupy essence. (It takes two days to boil down 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.) Everyone gets to sample the various stages-from the sap, which is slathered on crackers, to the warm, fresh-from-the-kettle syrup.
So, with our pockets full, we reached a sweet conclusion to our budget-friendly arts and entertainment adventure through DuPage, and we’re laden with calendars for upcoming events collected at each stop along the way.
HERE’S WHO’S GOT THE INFO
For a calendar of upcoming arts and entertainment events-both free and fee-call:
– North Central College, Naperville, 708-420-3440
– Arts Center at College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, 708-858-3110; COD’s “Thursdays Alive” series, 708-858-2800, ext. 2243.
– Hinsdale Center for the Arts, 708-887-0203
– Elmhurst College, 708-617-3390
– Wheaton College, 708-752-5010
– Illinois Benedictine College, 708-960-1500
– Downers Grove Public Library, program coordinator, 708-960-1200
– DuPage County Historical Museum, Wheaton, 708-682-7343
– Fermilab International Folk Dancing, Batavia, 708-584-0825.
– Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, 708-790-4900, ext. 270; for directions to Fullersburg Woods, Oak Brook, 708-790-4900 ext. 243.
– Fox Valley Folklore Society’s Folk Phone, 708-844-3655, for a recorded listing of upcoming events.
Other area colleges offering free and fee arts and entertainment events include Aurora University, 708-844-6510; Lewis University, Romeoville, 708-838-0500; Waubonsee Community College, 708-466-4811, ext. 411.
